The Rickshank Rickdemption
}} "The Rickshank Rickdemption" is the first episode of the third season of Rick and Morty. It is the twenty-second episode of the series overall. It premiered on April 1, 2017. It was written by Mike McMahan and directed by Juan Meza-Leon. SPOILER ALERT! Do not read any further if you have not seen this episode, as it will spoil it. Synopsis In the wake of the great human genocide, the Smith family comes to realize that Rick's technology is the only hope left for humanity to survive. Problem is, only Rick knows where it is, and he's in prison. In an effort to locate the missing tech, the Smith family stage a prison break. Plot The episode starts out with Rick and his family sitting in a booth at an old fashioned American diner, Shoney's, talking about Rick's escape from space prison. Rick smells a rat and orders Jerry to fold himself over 12 times. "Jerry" only manages to contort himself into six folds, revealing that this is in fact a simulation based on Rick's memories. A Galactic Federation agent named Cornvelious Daniel sitting in the next booth introduces himself, and reveals that he has been sent to gather information from Rick's mind via a brain-link. The agent makes it clear that Rick's brain will be liquefied at the end of the session, so he might as well revisit his memories one last time. Meanwhile, Morty and his family are back on Earth, which is now being run by the Galactic Federation. Jerry now works at an unspecified occupation, while Beth has lost her own job due to the Federation's advanced medical knowledge. Unhappy with their current way of life, Summer decides to save Rick, and digs up the portal gun buried by Rick in the backyard next to his own alternate-dimension corpse. Morty tries to dissuade Summer from doing so, but when the family's robot butler Conroy turns hostile and attempts to confiscate the portal gun, Morty transports them all to his "cronenburg-world" family, which he and Rick C-137 abandoned previously. After they arrive and destroy Conroy, Morty explains to Summer over dinner this world is proof that Rick does not care about anyone, especially his family. At this point, "cronenburg-world" Jerry smashes the portal gun, preventing Summer and Morty from leaving. Agents from the Council of Ricks show up to investigate the compromised portal gun, immobilizing "cronenburg-world" Jerry, Beth, and Summer. As Summer informs the agents that Rick C-137 has been captured, the agents dispatch a Rick Council Seal Team to assassinate Rick C-137, and Summer and Morty are captured. At the subsequent kangaroo court aboard the Citadel of Ricks, both Summer and Morty speak out against the council in Rick C-137's defense, and Morty reveals that he never gave up on Rick and was just trying to protect his sister from the dangers of life with Rick involved. Back in the brain-link simulation, Rick stops by a McDonalds drive-thru, and orders chicken McNuggets with Szechuan sauce. Rick then shows the agent a memory of how he lost his wife and Beth to an explosion, driving him to invent his first portal gun. The agent collects the code of the portal gun and uploads it to the brain-link server. The agent then attempts to leave the brain-link, but his communication device fails. Rick reveals that the "code" uploaded was actually a virus giving him control of the entire system, and that the "memory" they visited was a completely fabricated origin story. Rick transfers his consciousness out of the brain-link into the physical body of the agent. At this point, the Rick Council Seal Team shows up and destroys Rick C-137's old body. Rick manages to transfer his consciousness from his agent body to that of a Seal Team Rick. Rick C-137 (in his new body) kills the rest of the agents and makes his way to the teleportation control room of the Citadel of Ricks. He teleports the entire Citadel back into the middle of the Federation prison, resulting in a heated battle between the two sides. Rick C-137 infiltrates the Council chamber and kills most of the Council of Ricks before ending up in a standoff with the final member, attempting to use Summer as a hostage. With a clever bit of trickery, Rick and Morty combine efforts to save Summer and escape back to Earth, but not before Rick returns to the prison's control room and sends the Galactic Federation's currency plummeting to zero. With the economy in shambles, the Federation follows suit, sending the whole galaxy into chaos and resulting in many aliens leaving Earth. By the time Rick, Morty and Summer return home, Jerry is once again unemployed while Beth is simply relieved that her family is home safe and sound. Unhappy with his father-in-law's return, Jerry demands that Beth choose between himself and Rick, leading to the two deciding on divorce. Once Beth and Summer leave the garage, Rick reveals to Morty that he had himself captured on purpose in order to take revenge on both the Galactic Federation and Jerry for crossing him. By eliminating Jerry, Rick now takes on the role as undisputed patriarch of the family, and Morty will be forced to continue on adventures with him as both Beth and Summer view Rick as a hero. Rick explains that all he wants out of all his plans is to get Szechuan Chicken McNugget Sauce, which was discontinued by McDonalds years ago. Understandably, Morty is visibly horrified by the revelation. In the post-credits scene, Birdperson's corpse is reanimated with cybernetic parts and renamed "Phoenixperson". He and Tammy fly off into the distance, presumably to take revenge on Rick. Characters Major Characters * Rick Sanchez * Morty Smith * Beth Smith * Jerry Smith * Summer Smith * Diane Sanchez * Birdperson * Tammy * Jerry Smith (dimension C-137) * Beth Smith (dimension C-137) * Summer Smith (dimension C-137) * Cornvelious Daniel * Commander in Chief Rick * Council of Ricks **Riq IV **Rick Prime **Quantum Rick **Maximums Rickimus **Zeta Alpha Rick **Ricktiminus Sancheziminius Minor Characters * Galactic Federation President * SEAL Team Ricks ** Rick Sanchez (Dimension D-99) * "Lawyer" Morty * Hammerhead Morty * Mr. Goldenfold * Salesman Rick * Cyclops Rick * Fish Rick * Fish Morty * Black Rick * Wall Crawling Rick * Morty Rick * Dipper and Mabel Mortys Deaths * Conroy * Rick C-137's old body * Cornvelious Daniel * All members of SEAL Team Ricks * Rick Sanchez (Dimension D-99) * Many unnamed Galactic Federation Agents * Many Ricks * Many Mortys * Many unnamed Aliens * Many unnamed People * Many unnamed Gromflomites * Commander in Chief Rick * Quantum Rick's original mind and personality * Maximums Rickimus * Zeta Alpha Rick * Rick Prime * Ricktiminus Sancheziminius * Riq IV * Galactic Federation President Locations *Shoney's *Smith Residence *Citadel of Ricks *Buttworld *Galactic Federation prison *Dimension C-137 Trivia * The episode was uploaded as a continuous looping stream on Adult Swim as part of an April Fools publicity stunt. * The episode ending where Rick explains his motives for being the undisputed patriarch of the family towards Morty plays on the "Pilot" ending, where Rick is seen to be growing crazy, drooling in saliva as he explains his motives, Morty is shown to be horrified and lying on the ground, and the rapid light-bulb flashes return. * Throughout the episode, Rick says he needs to "take a dump/shit" 3 times, which comes inline with the statement Rick says beforehand: "Comedy comes in threes". * Morty and Summer's charges include "operating an unregistered portal gun, radicalising a Summer" and "conspiring with a traitorous Rick". * The "fly code" for Rick's garage transformation is 'right left right right right'. * In his ending crazed rant, Rick makes the statement that it will take him "9 more seasons" until he gets to his McNugget Sauce, once again breaking the fourth wall. **This is also similar to the '6 seasons and a movie' statement from Community, another show created by Dan Harmon. * As of the end of the episode, Rick Sanchez (C-137) resides in the body of Quantum Rick of the former Council of Ricks. * A major hint that shows that Rick Sanchez (C-137) has taken over a body is the saliva on the bottom of his mouth that is absent on all the other Ricks. If one is able to spot that, they could tell that Quantum Rick's body was taken over before it is revealed by Rick (C-137) himself. * Morty mentions that he and Summer once awkwardly discovered a mannequin leg that belonged to Jerry. This is a reference to an actual mannequin leg that is owned by co-creator Dan Harmon. * The name of Seal Team Rick is a play on the name of the assault team Seal Team Six, who were tasked by the US Government with the assassination of Osama Bin Laden. ** This could possibly be true through the many parallels, including both targets being seen as radical "terrorists", both assault team operating under government command, and both teams were told to assassinate/kill the target, among many other things. * This episode marks the end of the Council of Ricks and the Citadel of Ricks as a whole. Series continuity * Throughout the episode, Earth is inhabited by new aliens, which continues from the events that occur during the end of The Wedding Squanchers. * Summer realizes they can escape Earth when she is reminded that her original Rick, from Season 1's "Rick Potion 9", is buried in the back yard, along with his portal gun. * This episode returns to the "Cronenberged-Earth" (C-137) last seen in "Rick Potion 9", Rick and Morty's original universe, which they abandoned after wrecking it. Morty re-encounters his original family, even pointing out that the Summer in that universe is his actual sister. **Morty apparently knows the portal gun coordinates for Cronenberged-Earth, yet in all this time he made no attempt to save his original family from it. Unless, of course, it was just a coincidence, since Morty didn't have much reason to pick this world for saving himself and Summer from Conroy, and in the same scene we see him randomly shoot another portal leading to a realm of giant farting butts. *The Council of Ricks returns, last seen in the Season 1 episode "Close Rick-Counters of the Rick Kind". *In the cold open to the episode, Rick proves he is in a computer simulation by asking a character to do something impossible - in this case, for Jerry to fold himself 12 times. Rick did something similar in "M. Night Shaym-Aliens!", when he asked simulation characters to do increasingly complex things in order to freeze up the system. *A picture of Doofus Rick was seen in the cabinet, in the shot, where Morty chased Summer, telling her about the "goulish overkill". *The air date, April 1st, 2017, is almost exactly "a year and a half" after The Wedding Squanchers '' (October 4, 2015), as stated by Mr. Poopybutthole at the end of the episode. *There is a major '''continuity error'. The point of Rick's interrogation is to obtain his Interdimensional Portal technology, however during the Pilot episode Rick and Morty travel through Interdimensional Customs, which is run by the Galactic Federation, and they must therefore already have the technology. Cultural References * The title is a reference to the Stephen King story and 1994 film The Shawshank Redemption. * Rick chooses the restaurant Shoney's as a safe space in his memories, indicating that the Smith family live somewhere in the Southern United States, where the restaurant chain is based. ** However, a tweet from Justin Roiland identifies the location of the Smith residence being outside of Seattle. This might mean that Rick lived in the Southern United States at one point in his life, or that he spent a significant amount of time in the region. * The brain-link's simulation somewhat resembles the "memory puzzle" sequence from Fallout 4. * The promotion for the Szechuan dipping sauce was a promotion for the 1998 Disney film Mulan. In spite of the movie's success, the sauce was discontinued by McDonalds, and Rick has been trying to get more ever since. **The reference to Mulan also reinforces Rick as an antithesis to the film's heroine. While Mulan selflessly worked hard to protect her nation's government in the face of sexism, Rick effortlessly toppled two governments for a selfish reason. * Rick mentions a "one-armed man" during his rant, a reference to the elusive antagonist of the 1960s TV series The Fugitive. * Birdperson's transformation into Phoenixperson may be a reference to the X-Men ''character Angel, who was transformed into a more sinister version of himself called Archangel. * Another ''Gravity Falls Easter egg appears. In the Citadel of Ricks, two Morty's bear a striking resemblance to main characters Mabel and Dipper Pines. The Dipper Morty is even seen wearing the actual Dipper's hat. Transcript View a full transcript of this episode here. References it:Episodio 22 Category:Episodes Category:Season 3 episodes Category:Rick Episodes Category:Morty Episodes Category:Summer Episodes Category:Beth Episodes Category:Jerry Episodes